


Get Out Alive

by FlysWhumpCenter (TheDarkFlygon)



Series: Theatro Mundi (BTHB 2) [15]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and Injury, Character Bleed, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Major Character Injury, POV Third Person, Possibly Out of Character, Post-Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 11:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20581862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/pseuds/FlysWhumpCenter
Summary: He can't afford to die here.





	Get Out Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my (second) Bad Things Happen Bingo card.  
https://morbusaegraquescribo.tumblr.com/post/186951923331/here-is-your-new-card-for-bad-things-happen-bingo  
Prompt: Bleeding Out + Felix
> 
> There is no better way to study a character than to stick them in a situation where they're all alone. No outside disturbance, that way! Hell yeah!  
I've wanted to write one more of these "character has to survive" oneshots for a little while so I jumped on that occasion. Felix is a pretty fun character to try and a get a hold of. I suppose I've always liked edgy-ass guys.  
Let's justify every instance of out-of-characterness in this oneshot with blood loss! Hell yeah!  
It’s longer than I expected it to be, tbh.

A swooping motion of a fierce-looking, sharp-bladed axe.

A slight moment of inattention, given to another occurrence on the battlefield, misplaced worry.

A few droplets of crimson, shards of fabric, drops of sweat flow in the air along with the branches of the trees.

A move on the other side, of a sword, gets even more poured on the stomped grass.

A body collapses on the ground, another falls on its knee, a hand touching the stained soil.

And soon it crashes into a flow.

With heavy footsteps, the survivor rises to his feet, swaying. His fingers fumble with the edges of his soaked clothing, tips tinted in red, as he tries to examine the wound. It’s a deep slash, red all over from where his eyes can pry at it, and the stench would have overwhelmed him if he wasn’t so used to defeating enemies and watching their bodies empty themselves from their blood.

Then a wild thought as the world starts spinning: what if he stayed and defeated more enemies? He can’t leave the battlefield like a coward, can he? That’s not how he does it, he isn’t a fucking loser who’s afraid of dying, isn’t he? Death is nothing compared to the thrill of battle!

A familiar, firm voice calls out to him.

_Felix, retreat!_

The professor… No. Their _leader_. Their strategist, their commander on the battlefield. He has to obey their order, doesn’t he? Fuck this shit… Fuck this shit to Hell and back, he wants to continue fighting and do something that isn’t laying around doing jack shit, goddammit, don’t let him down like this!

Another voice, even more familiar, serious and severe, yet obviously concerned. Urgh.

_Felix, you damn idiot, retreat before you get yourself killed!_

It’s Ingrid’s, who is flying on her mount right over his head, a blurry image before she goes to spear an opponent about to slash his throat with the scooping motion of a rapier. Backed against a wall that doesn’t exist, he sheathes his dripping sword away, arm still pressed against the wound, and decides he’d be better off not getting harassed either.

His feet feel heavy, as if the light armour he wears got thicker and more constrictive since he’s put it on. Lethargy courses through his four limbs, one arm dropping by his side, weight pinching forward constantly. His balance is almost non-existent: he swings from one side to the other like an irregular pendulum, senses numbed and will to fight about to give up and in on him.

He resorts to using a corpse’s lance as a crutch, almost tripping on nothing as he kneels to get it. Disgraceful. Disgusting. That’s like showing the most weakness you can in one motion, in one decision. A fierce, proud swordsman like him shouldn’t have to rely on such cheap techniques to even make it out of the field without meeting his end. At best, he’s pathetic.

Despite the nausea taking a toll on him, he doesn’t taste bile coming up in the back of his throat.

Instead, he tastes _iron_. Bitter, filtered, liquid _iron_.

He’s become the picture of vulnerability and, as if knowing that wasn’t enough, everything in him constantly reminds him of that fact. Every noise seems so far away, the voices of his comrades like the sound of the lance he’s stolen, as if his ears were filled with fabric. His view is swimming more and more as he advances, hardly able to put a foot before the other without tripping, to the point he can soon only see blurry spots of colours and hear distorted sounds.

Dammit, this isn’t good… If his sight fails on him even further, he’s no better than dead in the eyes of anyone on this battlefield. He can’t waste precious time and resources on this, he’s got to get out of this mess on his own, and that’s only now that he realizes he’s afraid of death. Afraid of the eternal void, of the darkness of the everlasting slumber, and he doesn’t want it. Not now, not here. He still has things to do, things to partake in, and he can’t afford to meet his demise here.

He can’t afford to bleed out when he’s lost who-knows-how much of it already.

Speaking feels like it’d be a waste of energy, so he resolves to mentally motivating himself to the nearest healer. He has to find Mercedes, who wasn’t too far from him at the beginning, but it’s getting hard to distinguish anything in the sea of blur and vague. There’s no way to tell who is an ally and who is an enemy anymore and the screams roaring around him are nothing but a vast, undetermined, messy potpourri of noise. Talk about an environment to find your footing in.

A foot forward, then the other, then the lance… and he trips miserably on the ground, coughing against the grass, smelling the iron of fallen weapon and bodily fluids. It’s disgusting and repulsive, more than it has any right to be, and he gets nauseous to the point of almost fainting. Yet, fighting the world that keeps spinning to the point of being unrecognizable and the fluids that want to exit from his mouth and wounds, he gets up and continues, for once relieved that no fight is happening around him.

He _won’t_ end up like Glenn, not today, not here, and not in those circumstances! That much he _swears_ on his _life_!

(That’s ironic…)

His thoughts are on repeat. Don’t die. Don’t fall. Don’t falter. Don’t get distracted. Don’t engage a fight.

Don’t perish. Don’t trip. Don’t fail. Don’t get your attention somewhere else. Don’t start fighting someone.

Don’t lose your life. Don’t lose your footing. Don’t lose your composure. Don’t lose your focus. Don’t lose your reason because your honour got the best of you.

_Don’t die, Felix. You can’t afford it, none of you can afford it._

The lance breaks between his fingers, tired of supporting his unbalanced weight to itself. His legs are about to give in, but his vision is dampening with black and he can’t find another corpse to steal from. Even in his darkest times, fate gives up in him and tells him to find somewhere else to go, to see if the green isn’t less red in that imaginary destination. The only land he’s getting promised here is the realm of the dead and he doesn’t want to be there.

He’s glad to be alive, thank you, and dying isn’t pleasing him.

Shivers wreck his frame from head to toes. He feels cold, so cold under the fur of his armour, so cold under the blazing heat of the sun that made him sweat barely minutes ago. Time is torturing him, making him think he’s going to die a moment, giving him back some vigour the next. He feels sick, but it’s no sickness that’s affecting him.

His legs end up giving in in the middle of the field. He tries to drag himself along the grass to make it to safety, to a healer, to _something_ dammit; but his arms are too weak from supporting the rest against a glorified, broken stick, and can’t be expected to lift his weight once again. A glass canon he’s always been, a glass canon he’ll die as. That’s it.

This is the bitter end and it feels as unsatisfying as it could possibly have.

His eyes shut close and don’t open even when he begs them to. Vague echoes dance in his mind to taunt him –the sound of the living being alive and enjoying life— as he attempts one last time to rise to his knees. His bones have transformed into lead, everything is either too far or too soon. It sure is his end, (not _the_ end, _his_ end, that’s painfully obvious), and it’s an end he doesn’t want to see.

It’s dying in disgrace, dishonour and loneliness, surrounded by the enemy, not unlike what his brother must have gone through during the Tragedy. _Fitting_, but displeasing to say the least.

With nothing to see, touch or feel with, he’s stuck waiting for the finale, lying on his back, a lethargic end on the wound that’s going to cost him so, so much. Talk about a miserable defeat, unfit of his mastery. It could have been avoided too, if he hadn’t seen Sylvain almost getting wounded himself… In the end, you really are supposed to stand on your own and be independent, don’t you?

Yeah… That’s funny. Life’s funny. All he has left is to mentally laugh about how pathetic he must look like at the moment. It makes you like or hate it, and then plays around with you until you’re either tired of it or addicted to the feeling of being alive. It’s living for the sake of living until you die and realize how much you have left to do. If he dies today, he won’t ever get to see his house prosper after the death of both heirs. He won’t get to win against the professor he’s sworn to vanquish in a spar someday. He won’t get to see if Sylvain will calm down, if the boar prince (excuse him, _Dimitri_) will ever come back from the mental war, if his kingdom will win the war.

It’s funny that he cares about all of this so much now. Earlier, he was just busy trying to survive and retreat. It’s amusing in all the wrong meanings of the term.

Death is funny too if you twist it one way or the other, isn’t it?

An echo of a voice comes in his vague direction.

_Felix!!_

It feels like Annette’s voice, but he isn’t sure. It could be Mercedes or even Ingrid, considering how far he’s gone. Footsteps accompany it, until it seems like he’s getting held. It’s not like he can even see who it is to be sure about the identity of the person lifting him up from the ground.

_Oh my Goddess, he’s bleeding out…! _

The voice frets over herself, reminding his body to feel pain when it’s forgotten how to have anything going through it other than numbness and powerlessness. It’s a strangely welcome slight change, even if he grits his teeth and almost screams in a broken screech.

_H-hang on, Felix, I’ll bring you to safety! Don’t die on me okay?!_

He tries nodding. Must be the least reassuring sight ever, but fretting won’t be of use to anyone, so he just does it anyway. The warmth of this person is soothing, why not try to do something in exchange? 

Funny that hope comes back when despair is settled.


End file.
